Shadow Work--Day 25

What am I settling for in my relationships?

Warrior Three is about waiting and watching.  For me, it represents sitting on the sidelines while other people are in center stage.  This card is also about teamwork and being part of a larger group.  I don't want to be part of a larger group.  I want to be someone's one and only and not part of a group of friends. 

Maker King in this position is about being my own king and being responsible for myself.  I enjoy being independent and taking care of myself, but sometimes it gets lonely to be the one that is always responsible for taking care of things.

Death is an interesting card to come up in this position and I'm not sure what it tells me about what I am settling for in relationships.  What it may tell me is that I am holding on to things that I should let go of because they are no longer serving my needs.  Sometimes in order to move on, we need to let go of things that are holding me back.  I'm wondering if this card is telling me that I need to let go of my infatuation with someone and cut that cord so that I can have a deeper and more real relationship.  This card is also about shedding and one of my words for this year is shedding as in getting rid of things that no longer serve me.  This card seems to be telling me it truly is time to shed those relationships.

Shadow Work -- Day 24

What am I looking for in my relationships?

Maker Five tells me I want full transparency and honesty in a relationship.  I do not want someone who is hiding anything.  I also want someone who is capable of asking for help and doesn't use passive aggressive tactics to manipulate me.  I want someone capable of having an honest conversation about who they are, what they want from a relationship, etc.

Dreamer Two is all about making decisions.  I want someone who knows what they want and goes after it.  I don't want someone who is purely a dreamer who thinks up great schemes, but never does the hard work required to make things happen.  John had great ideas, but he never had the grit and the gumption to bring them to fruition.  I need someone with grit and gumption who will actually follow through.

Maker Two echoes that theme in telling me I want someone who takes responsibility for their life.  Who is capable of owning their mistakes and who doesn't constantly blame others for their sorry state in life.

All of these cards are telling me that I want a grownup and not a little boy. 

Shadow Work -- Day 23

At this point, what am I refusing to accept about my shadow and my relationships?

Dancer Six tells me that I cannot be the center of the universe at all times.  Other people have their own things going on and I can't expect everyone to constantly drop everything to take care of my emotional needs.  If everything is constantly drama, than no one will be there for me when i really need people to support me.  This card also  tells me that I need to let go of the crappy messages that I learned in my childhood.  Those messages are not supporting me and are not helping me to grow as a person.

The Tower tells me that I am refusing to accept that people will like me for who I am without the mask on.  I love this version of the Tower because it shows a mask being blown away which tells me it is about the fakeness and the illusions being blown away.  I always feel like I have to be someone else in order for people to like me.  I have to do something for them, I have to buy them something, etc.  This card is telling me that I don't need any of that.  I just need to be myself, but I can't accept that.

Temperance is telling me once again that I need to open my heart.  The heart on the fairy figure is clearly open and the man below is also opening himself up.  Opening my heart is life and love will bring me all that I desire in relationships, but I refuse to accept this.  I continue to look for ways where I can have an amazing relationship without opening my heart, but Temperance is telling me that will not happen.

Shadow Work--Day 22

At this point, what have I learned about my shadow and relationships?

Warrior Ten tells me that I cannot carry the entire weight of a relationship on my own shoulders.  There is a give and take.  I need to let go of my need to "buy affection" or to do more of my fair share of the work so that people will like me.  I need to hold people accountable in both work and personal settings.  That's hard for me to do because I am a people pleaser, but other people have to own their actions and have to own their responsibilities in friendships, in family relationships, and in other relationships.  Part of this is choosing to value myself and choosing to say that if I value myself, I cam not going to carry the burden of always being the one to contact people.  If someone values me and considers me their friend, they need to share the burden of connecting.  If someone does not share the burden of connecting, that tells me that I am a friend of convenience and that I don't really matter to the other person.  And that includes X!  He never reaches out and I'm tired of being the one to maintain our friendship.

Dancer Four tells me that it is not all about me.  I need to get out of my own head and look around me and start forming relationships with people around me.  I do spend a lot of time living in my head, not from a vanity perspective, but from a perspective of being wrapped up in my own world and tuning out what is going on around me.  Cam calls me on that all the time because I am just so wrapped up in my own things that I just don't pay attention.

The Maker card reiterates what Warrior Ten tells me, I cannot be all things to all people in a relationship.  I have to be comfortable being my own shining star and letting other people be their own shining stars.  I also cannot be all things to all people and I have to accept that.  People who want to use me should not be in my life.  I also have to do a better job of drawing boundaries around time with my family, especially C's demands.

Shadow Work-Day 20

What part of my shadow do I need to use less?

Warrior Two is the card of power awakening and although power awakening is a a really good thing, it can also be a little overwhelming.  I now that I can overwhelm people sometimes with my attitudes, my thoughts, and my power and while I will never choose to be less than again as I was with my ex, I will choose to listen more and talk less.  I'm learning that sometimes raw power needs to be moderated and dialed back to enable and support people versus overwhelming them.

Warrior Two gives me the gift of courage and helps me to jump into the middle of new situations and make my way to the other side.  However, courage is something else that can be scary for other people especially if I set the expectation that I think they are a wuss if they do not have the same level of courage that I do.  This is something else I need to moderate and practice holding people's hands and guiding them versus pushing them off a cliff.

The Hermit tells me that I love to retreat into myself and shut people out.  That is intimidating for people and people often take it personally.  In reality, it is not meant personally it is just me needing my personal space and doing what I can to protect and care for myself.  One of the things I can do to take care of myself better and not put up the huge shields is make sure I take care of myself all along and not let myself get so run down that the only way I can recover is to isolate myself.

This was an incredibly powerful reading and although it is a great reminder that I am a very strong and fierce person, it is also a reminder that sometimes there is strength in dialing back our capabilities.

Shadow Work--Day 19

What part of my shadow do I need to use more?

Maker Four tells me I need to learn to say no to obligations, etc. that are not in my best interest.  I shouldn't say yes to things that mean I end up spending the entire weekend working with no down time.  I need to learn to set better boundaries.  It also means I need to stop using work to escape into and as an excuse to not meet people.

Dreamer Three tells me that I need to feel the heartbreak and let it go.  I need to accept the cleansing relief that letting go of the pain can bring.  I need to lean into the pain instead of running away from it.

Dreamer Queen tells me to think things through and to use my logic and not just my heart.  Dreamer Queen is a stalker card as she has shown up multiple times.

Up until now my readings for this work have been spot on and have made a lot of sense.  I struggled with this reading as the cards did not seem to make sense for the question.  I'm going to continue to pray and meditate on it and the cards may make more sense later.

Shadow Work -- Day 18

What do I need to release to bring my shadow forward?

Tarot of the Sidhe
@Emily Carding

Warrior Two tells me that it is time for me to make a choice about what I really want in life and the last few weeks have helped me to make that choice.  I'd always though that I was a white picket fence kind of woman and that the white picket fence needed to include a husband, but I'm realizing that I'm perfectly content all by myself.  I do not need someone to make me whole and complete and that actually having someone in my life 24/7 is overwhelming.  As I write this, I realize that John probably always recognized at some level that I did not need him and he worked to make me need him.  This card is also about awakening and claiming my power and realizing how strong I truly am.

Dancer Princess tells me it is time to believe in magick and to open my heart and soul to love and joy.  It is time to let go of my cynicism and believe in unicorns and love.  Opening my heart to love means that I might be hurt, but it could also bring me great joy.

Dreamer Princess tells me it is time to clearly communicate my wishes to the universe.  Dreamer Princess tells me it is time to tell the universe what I want and to be prepared to go after it.  By clearly communicating what I do and do not want, I let go of the whispers and the fear.  Claiming what I want seems a little intimidating, but I'm ready to move forward with my life and to get out of limbo.

Shadow Work--Day 17

What is the main cause of my negative traits in relationships?

Dreamer Queen is back to tell me that one of the causes of my negative traits in relationships is that I live in my head and that I prefer books to people.  Oddly enough I lead with my heart at work because I love what I do, in my personal life I very much lead with my head because my head is what keeps me safe.  My heart made the bad decision to marry John so I have to pay for the rest of my life by living in my head.  However, I have a choice and I can choose to take a more balanced approach and listen to both my heart and my head.

Warrior Five tells me that I put obstacles in my own way by continually coming up with excuses to not find love and to not let people in.  I can always find something else to occupy my time or something else to do versus letting people in and spending time with people.

Oh the cards are talkative tonight.  The last card I pulled is the Hermit and that is so true because I would rather stay in my comfort zone than get out and meet people.  Oddly enough, this card rankles me sometimes because my ex used to say I was a hermit and it made me angry because he said it in such a derogatory manner.  When we divorced, I embraced being a hermit because it meant that I could control who came into my life and I didn't have to play by his rules anymore.  However, I may have gone too far and built the walls too high.

Shadow Work--Day 16

What negative aspects of my shadow do I project?

As much as I love the Dancer Two card in its aspect of soulmate, the message it gives me about this question is that I often turn my back to people I love.  If things get too emotionally intense, I will back away and be standoffish rather than be emotionally available and open to another person.  I also tend to pull away when conversations get too personal.  I don't like to let people in because of my fear of being hurt so I walk away and show my back.

The flip side of this is Dreamer Ten which tells me that if I get comfortable with someone I can bleed my emotional pain all over someone else.  Up until recently, I've taken emotional hostages and expected them to be my emotional support human and take whatever pain and ick I've dredged up.  If they pulled back or had their own issues, I got angry because they weren't there for me in the the way I needed them to be there for me.

Dreamer Queen sitting on her pile of books tells me that when I am in uncomfortable situations, I approach them from a place of the mind and not the heart.  This reminds me of my original list of qualifications for a partner.  Because my ex was basically a deadbeat, my first criteria for being with someone was that they made as much or more than I do.  A lot of people pointed out to me that I was ruling out a lot of potential partners on something arbitrary.  They made the argument that a lot of guys were not like my ex and were self supporting and would not have their ego's bruised by someone making more money than they did.  To a certain extent, I see their point, but my fear has kept me from removing that criteria.

As always with the Tarot of the Sidhe, I'm getting a lot of good reads that are truly speaking truths I need to hear.

Shadow Work--Day 14

What part of my shadow stifles relationships?

Dreamer Four tells me that I value my me time over relationships and it is true because a lot of times if the decision comes down to chilling at home and going out to meet people, I will choose to stay home and chill.  I don't necessarily think that that is a bad thing because I am very much an introvert and need my recharging time, but I can't sit and bitch and moan about not having a lot of friends if I am going to consciously choose alone time over meeting people.  There is also a possibility that I choose alone time over meeting people because I am afraid of interacting and being hurt.

Strength is another card that makes a lot of sense in this reading as I am a very strong and fierce individual and I don't need a lot of help navigating life.  Additionally, because I am afraid of meeting people, I often choose to be strong and just get things done versus asking for help.  I can never be disappointed and have people say no if I never ask.

One of the things that I am realizing as I mature and heal is that I sometimes have problems differentiating between illusion and intuition when it is something I have strong feelings about.  The Moon is telling me that because I am terrified of being hurt either intentionally or unintentionally, I an convince myself that my intuition is telling me I should not do something when in reality it is my fear.

These cards were really spot on and they are forcing me to look at how my fear is manifesting itself in my life and how I'm using a lot of excuses to prevent myself from meeting people.

Shadow Work--Day 12

How do I integrate my shadow?

Dreamer King tells me to cut through the illusions and the bullshit.  I have spent enough time working on healing work that I know it is bullshit to think everyone will treat me like my ex-husband.  I also need to cut through my old beliefs that came from my misogynistic upbringing.  I do not need a man to be happy.  I do not need a man to be successful.  It would be nice to have someone to hang out with and confide in, but I am a fully functional human being all by myself without anyone else.  That is a really hard concept for me because I saw how divorced women were treated when I grew up (and yes that was in the 70's and 80's).  Divorced women were to be pitied for not being able to keep their men and they were expected to either go out and get a new man or to move in with their parents.  Intellectually I know that is total garbage, but I guess there was a part of me that believed that bullshit.  Dreamer King tells me that I have the responsibility to let go of that way of thinking.

Dancer Two is a card that I love because it shows the soul mates back to back instead of face to face.  I like this because it tells me that soul mates can be connected and always be there for the other, but that being soulmates doesn't mean I have to be completely focused on the other person.  Even though we are partners and together, we can still have our own lives and our own interests.  This is the complete opposite of my marriage where John said he wanted us to build our own interests, but every time I tried he sabotaged me.  I wanted to go back to school and he put up road blocks.  I started working out after work and he started taking an earlier train so I'd have to pick him up sooner.  He also expected me to be interested in everything he did and got pouty when I wasn't interested in football.  That is now how a relationship should work and that is the very clear message I'm getting from Dancer Two.

Dreamer Eight tells me that I sometimes get caught up in my own illusions and it is okay to cut through them and to recognize them for what they are.  I have chosen to trap myself and it is time to free myself.  I have it within my power to cut through everything that is holding me back and to step out of the trap.  All that is holding me back is my own beliefs.  This card has come up multiple times lately as it came up for my card of the day on Friday and it came up when someone read for me.  The universe is screaming at me that it is time to step out of my own constraints.

Shadow Work--Day 11: Where do I hesitate in relationships and why?

Where do I hesitate in relationships and why?

Dreamer Ten tells me that I hesitate in relationships because I am terrified of getting hurt.  I'm terrified of having my heart ripped out again and I know that I could not handle this hurt again.  Interestingly enough, Ten of Swords came up yesterday in a reading I received yesterday as a reason that I hesitate in relationships and it is a mental block and not a block from my heart.  My brain has convinced me that I am unlovable, that I am not worthy of love, and that everyone out there who might be interested in me will take advantage of me and bleed me dry.  I am projecting all of the hurt from my ex-husband on everyone else.  As long as I continue projecting on everyone else, I will never be able to have a relationship because I will keep everyone at arm's length.

Dreamer Nine is interesting as I have nightmares about not being loved and being unloved forever, but it is my own fear that is keeping love at bay.  There is no room in my life for love as long as I am haunted by nightmares of being hurt.  I think it is time that I actually addressed the physical and emotional abuse that I received.  For the most part, I've dealt with the emotional abuse and am in a place where I would recognize emotional abuse for what it was.  I've also gotten so much stronger at setting boundaries and cutting people out of my life.  I would also walk away after the first time someone hit me, but I'm terrified of letting someone close enough for there to be a first time.  My mind has built barriers to opening up and letting people in to protect my body.

Dancer Seven is telling me that I am drowning in these illusions.  I have so bought into my belief that anyone I meet would hurt me that I can't seem to release this and let it go.  I have built my barricades up so high and I am so convinced that my only alternative is to keep people out.  This is why I am in such a place of fear and it is so difficult for me to actually connect with people and make friends and have relationships.

This was an incredibly powerful and insightful reading and it has identified something I didn't realize before as I had kind of shrugged off the physical abuse my ex put me through and focused on the emotional abuse, but I've realized that my mind has built a lot of barriers to protect myself from this abuse.

Shadow Work--Day 7

How important are relationships to my shadow?

Warrior Ten tells me that my shadow likes relationships to feel needed.  My shadow wouldn't know what to do with itself without someone relying on him.  However, this is a double edged sword as my shadow also feels used by people who "walk all over it."  My shadow also takes on other people's burdens as a way of feeling important and needed.  In some ways, my shadow would feel as if it did not have a right to exist if it wasn't doing for others.  This was the mentality that my mother drilled into my head as a child and it is a hard mindset to break.

The Hermit shows the flip side of my shadows relationship to other people. Once I have reached my fill of other people, I like to retreat and to be by myself with no human interruptions.  I need the room to contemplate and to breathe.  Being around people can be suffocating for me and it can be incredibly overwhelming. 

I had to smile as I saw the warrior king as the warrior king is prancing alone in a field of battle.  He likes his glory and he likes to be the center of attention.  My shadow loves to be the center of attention.  I've gotten better about it, but in the past I truly had to feel as if everyone was paying attention to me or I would cease to exist.  I liked to be the center of attention for things I did well, but I was also content being the center of attention as a victim.

Shadow Work--Day 6

How does a lover's shadow influence my shadow?

Pan tells me that my lover's shadow is in part about indulgence and drunken lust and that is very true.  My ex was all about indulgence and having a good time.  He was someone who didn't want to be responsible, but always wanted to have a good time and he always wanted me to be at his side.  It was as if he did not understand that I had responsibilities and when I had to be up early, I did not want to be out until 3 am partying.  When we were first together, I'd let him lead me down that garden path, but then I grew up and became...




The Elder who tells me that I realized I had responsibilities in life and that if I wanted to be successful, I had to fulfill those responsibilities and could not do that if I was out partying.  The Elder is also about tradition and ritual and studying and doing the work.  The Elder is about doing the work required for initiation and not just stepping up and getting it handed to us.  Oddly this card resonates with me for another reason as well as my ex always accused me of getting my degree handed to me and not working for it.  While it is true that my parents paid for my degree, it is also true that I worked hard for everything I had and I continue to work hard for my success.

Warrior Six tells me that my ex was all about the adulation and the accolades and not about doing the work and that's true.  I always wrote for the sheer joy of writing, but his focus on writing was selling and I didn't like to write just to sell.  I've realized that I write as a form of catharsis.  It is about putting my story down on paper.  Sometimes I'd turn my stories into fiction because it was less painful for fictional characters to deal with my pain than it was to acknowledge the pain as mine.  My ex is all about the victory lap and he's also all about using people to share their glory.  He was horrible to our kids, but he loved to brag about them.

Shadow Work--Day 4

How does my shadow hurt my relationships?

The Dancer tells me that I like to be alone.  I like to dance alone, I like to just be alone.  It is hard for me to be part of a group as my normal state of being is aloneness.  This is a card of healing and love, but for me that is healing myself and not healing the world.

Warrior three tells me that sometimes everything in my life is performance art.  I show up because I have to instead of because I really want to.  This works well at work where I get paid to show up and basically tell a story, but it doesn't work as well in my personal life because it keeps me from forming the real and intimate connections that I crave.  This is supposed to be a card of collaboration, but for me it speaks to people working alone.

Maker King tells me that I intimidate people.  This may be because I am skilled at what I do, but could also be because I give off a vibe that I'm not interested in hearing other people's opinions.  I like to be the king and I like to think that my skills are so special that no one could improve them.  Interestingly, I've been getting an education in learning to sell lately as I've had to put material together for our sales team and every time I do it, it gets a little bit better, but I'm not quite there it.  I have to be honest and say that this is literally one of the hardest things that I've ever had to do.

Shadow Work--Day 3

How will integrating my shadow improve my relationships?

Maker Prince--The maker prince is kind and gentle and spends time in nature with animals.  My knowledge of my shadow and my honesty with myself will help me to build true connections with people.  I don't put on airs or pretend to be something I'm not.  I also acknowledge my flaws and work hard to truly change my interactions with people.  All of these things are attractive to people because they get the sense that I am real. I'm also grounded and am beginning to be comfortable in my own skin, flaws and all.





Death--I have learned over my life that nothing stays the same and that sometimes we have to say

goodbye to things that matter to us so that we can move on.  One of the best lessons I've learned from John is to let go when things are no longer working.  I held on to the dead and lifeless corpse of my marriage for way too long and that caused a lot of problems for me.  I've learned that it is okay to work on relationships, but sometimes you have to acknowledge they are dead.  Although I don't always welcome endings, I've learned to welcome the transformation that comes with them.  There is always something new to discover and to learn.  Change is always hard, but it is easier when we welcome transformation and accept that there is something new and different coming into our lives.

Dreamer Five--At first glance, this is a very depressing card as it is about hope being discarded and about powerlessness and resignation.  However, I've learned that unrealistic hope can be unhealthy.  Sometimes we cling to a dream that we hope will work out, but in reality we've outgrown that dream and it is time to move on.  When we aren't able to discard this hope and move on, it can hold us back.  It's really interesting that this card showed up for me because I am finally at a point in my life where I've let go of the hope that a relationship will work out with someone.  Intellectually, I've known it for a couple of years, but int eh back of my mind I had hope that it would magically work out.  Being able to let go of that hope means that I can finally move on and be ready for the right relationship for me.